The present invention generally relates to an assembly of the type employed in the manufacture of bakery goods and the like. In particular, the present invention is directed to a uniquely constructed machine for systematically producing relatively lengthy, braided rolls of dough for making biscuits or the like.
One of the factors which often significantly affects the commercial success or failure of a product is the particular manner in which the product is packaged. In recent years, packaging has also come to play a significant role in the sale of food products. For example, it has become increasingly popular to produce braided rolls of certain food products, such as biscuits or the like. Initially, a plurality of separate bars of biscuit dough were usually manually interwoven into a single roll in a complicated and time-consuming procedure. More importantly, the human factor introduced by manual weaving of the dough bars often made it difficult, if not impossible, to uniformly produce substantially identically sized rolls of identical configuration.
In an attempt to overcome the various problems associated with manual weaving or braiding of a plurality of separate dough bars, it was suggested that a machine be constructed for automatically weaving the bars of dough. Such a machine was suggested in German application Publication DOS No. 2,161,039, wherein a relatively complicated mechanism was suggested for weaving separate dough bars, but, proved less than satisfactory in failing to provide uniformly sized dough bars. Rather, such a machine as suggested hereabove in the German application DOS No. 2,161,039 tended to produce dough bars of unequal thicknesses which would tear on even break during the weaving process. As a result, it was often impossible to create the lengthy rolls of braided dough necessary for manufacturing biscuits or the like.
As will be explained in detail hereafter, the present invention provides a machine which overcomes the types of problems discussed hereabove, as well as additional problems which confront prior art machines.